Hampshire Trust Bank (HTB) has promoted Athens Piponides to lending manager within its development finance team, having spent more than two years as a relationship manager.

As lending manager, he will take greater responsibility for development finance relationships, working across the Midlands region and closely with developers and brokers as schemes progress.

Piponides has experience across specialist property finance, and before joining HTB, he worked as an underwriter in specialist property finance and previously spent two years as a loan manager for development finance at Crystal Specialist Finance.

Atom bank has improved affordability on its prime and near prime product ranges by increasing its loan-to-income (LTI) on loans up to 90% LTV.

The increase is designed to help borrowers with household incomes between £45,000 to £60,000, with the increase in LTI enabling them to increase their maximum loan amount by between £23,000 and £31,000.

Atom’s prime range is for applicants who have had no defaults in the last 36 months, with no more than one default between 37 and 72 months ago. Any unsatisfied defaults must have a combined value of no more than £500 per applicant.

Hanley Economic Building Society has launched two five-year shared ownership mortgage products for foreign nationals living and working in the UK, with no minimum UK residency period.

The new range consists of a five-year variable discount mortgage with an initial rate of 5.85%, representing a 1.89% discount on the society’s standard variable rate, and a five-year fixed mortgage at 5.99%.

Both products are available up to 95% LTV for purchase and remortgage purposes on a capital and interest repayment basis, each with a £999 arrangement fee. Applications are accepted from foreign nationals holding a skilled worker visa, health and care worker visa or global talent visa. Dependant visa holders may apply as joint applicants.

conveybuddy has marked its two-year anniversary by revealing significant growth in the number of brokers and advisory firms using its platform, alongside an 88% year-on-year increase in overall instruction levels.

The conveyancing distributor now has 4,200 registered mortgage brokers, marking a 75% year-on-year increase. The number of individual broker companies instructing conveybuddy has also increased by almost 78% to 1,030 in the same period.

The firm said the growth in adviser usage and instruction levels has been accomplished by significant development of its proposition and technology during its first two years.

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